Preface:

Standards development within the Information Technology sector is harmonized with international standards development. Through the CSA Technical Committee on Information Technology (TCIT), Canadians serve as the Canadian Advisory Committee (CAC) on ISO/IEC Joint Technical Committee 1 on Information Technology (ISO/IEC JTC1) for the Standards Council of Canada (SCC), the ISO member body for Canada and sponsor of the Canadian National Committee of the IEC. Also, as a member of the International Telecommunication Union (ITU), Canada participates in the International Telegraph and Telephone Consultative Committee (ITU-T).

For brevity, this Standard will be referred to as "CAN/CSA-ISO/IEC TR 29163-1" throughout.

At the time of publication, ISO/IEC TR 29163-1:2009 is available from ISO and IEC in English only. CSA Group will publish the French version when it becomes available from ISO and IEC.

1.1 About This Document

The United States Department of Defense (DoD) and the White House Office of Science and Technology Policy (OSTP) launched the Advanced Distributed Learning Initiative (ADL) in November 1997. The vision of the ADL Initiative is to provide access to the highest quality learning and performance aiding, that can be tailored to individual needs, delivered cost-effectively anytime and anywhere. The ADL Initiative aims to accelerate large-scale development of dynamic and cost-effective learning software and systems and to stimulate the market for these products.

As a foundation for accomplishing those goals, ADL's Sharable Content Object Reference Model (SCORM) aims to foster the creation of reusable learning content as "instructional objects" within a common technical framework for computer-based and Web-based learning. SCORM describes that technical framework by providing a harmonized set of guidelines, specifications and standards based on the work of several distinct e-learning specifications and standards bodies. These organizations continue to work with ADL, developing and refining their own e-learning specifications and standards, and helping to build and improve SCORM.

This document provides an overview of the SCORM 2004 3rd Edition documentation suite, the SCORM 2004 3rd Edition Conformance Test Suite and SCORM 2004 3rd Edition Sample Run-Time Environment. It is written at an intentionally high level. The technical details of SCORM can be found in three stand-alone documents, or books that cover the Content Aggregation Model (CAM), the Run-Time Environment (RTE) and Sequencing and Navigation (SN).

This third edition is released in response to enhancements identified by the ADL Technical Team and the ADL Community at large, as well as updates to specifications and standards work that have taken place since the release of SCORM 2004 2nd Edition, in July 2004.